josh...just josh

So as the title says I'm confused... This is the first car I have ever owned with a dizzy (I have older cars but they have all been diesel Volkswagens). I didn't have a lot of time to look at the ignition since I'm 3hr.s away from my SE at college and my biggest focus was on making it run.
It seems to be a fairly normal vacuum advance distributer, with the ignition split between two coils (and two advances) for leading and trailing. That much I understand. It's all this talk of J-109's and igniters that gets me. I know that igniters on dis cars use position sensor input to fire the coils, do these work the same? Where are they mounted and what do they use for position (dizzy location?) What the heck is a J-109?

iceblue

You are speaking of the igniters. There is two of them small pack on the back of a square box on the strut tower. They are common to fail at around 110$ a piece a lot of people upgrade them to the GM module for about 25$ and some wiring.

josh...just josh

so the J-109 is an igniter? right, so is there a ignition module to or is the advance fully vacuum?

3rd and final 7

iTrader: (9)

J-109 is the type of the ignitor! the type in your car is J-109 as many of the 1st gens if i remember correctly there is a lower number J-series ignitor from earlyer 7's. the ignitors are in the dizzy if your are looking at the dizzy from the driver sid eof the car they will be at your 6 and 12 o'clock postion of looking at the dizzy! you will see 2 plugs one on each ignitor!

diabolical1

iTrader: (3)

on the strut tower? i thought the igniters were mounted on the distributor body???

3rd and final 7

iTrader: (9)

thats what im saying i think i got a pic somewhere

iceblue

its part of the whole unit. I ment to say ignition module.

Siraniko

iTrader: (13)

1980 has a remote igniters that are located in a block box in the driver side strut tower.

diabolical1

iTrader: (3)

gotcha ... never had the pleasure of owning or working an SA. you live and learn, i guess.

josh...just josh

so my SE has them in the distributer right?

K-Tune

iTrader: (26)

ON the distributor, and yes.

3rd and final 7

iTrader: (9)

did not know that either ! thank you!

DavidMyers53

If your J109 igniters go out, as stated above, you can change to HEI (GM) igniters. I replaced my leading right after I got my car a few months ago,
and recently changed to DLIDFIS with two HEI's. Check the FAQ's for Jeff20B's write up on this, or search and you'll find other posts/pictures.

- David